Beyond the Wall of Resistance Excerpt

On February 1, 2003, the Shuttle Columbia burned and was destroyed on reentry into
the Earth’s atmosphere. An independent commission was appointed to examine the cause of
the accident and make recommendations. They wrote that they “intended to put this
accident into context.” The report went onto say, “We considered it unlikely that the
accident was a random event; rather it was likely related in some degree to NASA’s
budgets, history and program culture, as well as the politics, compromises, and
changing priorities of the democratic process. We are convinced that the management
practices overseeing the Space Shuttle Program were as much a cause of the accident as
the foam that struck the left wing.”

If we are looking for one thing—say the technical reasons why an accident
occurred—we will limit what we see and risk missing something equally or more
important. By forcing ourselves to look more broadly and ask, “What else could it be?”
we expand the frame and allow for a broader and even deeper understanding of the
problem or problems.

When the world economic crisis hit in 2008, we—the press and the
public—looked for who was responsible for this meltdown. We had to have a
villain. And there were villains, but by solely focusing on the cheats and crooks, it
distracted us from looking at the underlying causes of the crisis. Complexity came
later. Context matters.

This excerpt comes from Chapter 5 (“Context Matters”) of Rick Maurer’s
Beyond
the Wall of Resistance: Why 70% of Changes Fail — and What You Can Do About
It (Bard Press, 2010). This book shows frustrated managers at all levels
how to transform the power of resistance into a positive force. The book includes tools
for managing organizational change and will help you see ways to create your own change
management tools.

The attached Zip file includes:

• Intro Page.doc
• Cover Sheet and Terms.pdf
• Beyond the Wall of Resistance Excerpt.pdf